McNeel & Associates has announced this week the release of a new WIP (work in progress) for Rhino 5.0 for Mac OS X. Users can immediately download the latest work-in-progress build of the popular NURBS-based modeling system that has become a favorite application within advanced architectural circles doing cutting edge formative design.

Rhino 5.0 WIP – Details

This new Mac release includes all applicable updates and fixes from the Windows Rhino 5.0 release from back in late April of this year. This Rhino 5.0 WIP release for Mac also includes specific Mac platform changes as follows:

Mac Rhino now requires OS X Lion or later (Mountain Lion just came out). There is a separate “unsupported” version of Mac Rhino for Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) for users who are still using Snow Leopard

Extra debugging tests have been turned on in an attempt to find an intermittent crash bug somewhere in Mac Rhino. Please report any “Failed assertion” errors in the support forum

Mac Rhino uses OS X Lion’s Auto Save and Versions features when running on OS X Lion or above. Additional information about these features can be found here.

Everyone is invited to download and use the OS X Rhino build 5.0 WIP, while it is in development. Most of the core functionality has been ported from Windows and is very stable. There is still much to do to port the rest of the functionality and refine the user interface and McNeel is dedicated to complete that long term.

McNeel is reporting that they do not expect the first commercial release for OS X to be ready until 2013. In the meantime, users are welcome to enjoy the WIP builds for free and new WIPs will be released periodically.

Architosh Analysis

Well there has been incredible hope and excitement about Rhino on the Mac platform the company itself has struggled, it appears, to have kept up with its estimates for a final commercial release. The last time Architosh reported on Rhino for Mac it was back in January of 2011 and at that time Rhino 5 WIP was released for the first time. The estimate for a first commercial release was the following year, which would have been January of 2012. Now the company is reporting next year again.

Our feeling is that the company needs to focus on support for third-party plugin support, as this capability is critical to many users’ ability to run with Rhino on the Mac. With that in hand, a commercial release can begin to help fund further Rhino Mac development, which since its inception has been carried by a free WIP release.